One of the most daunting aspects of pursing a creative or artistic career for many aspiring artists is not knowing how to learn the craft. So, we asked some very talented artists and creatives to talk to us about how they learned their crafts and we hope their stories will help you in your journey.

Steve Delgado

When I began pursing the craft, I knew that I had to go study. I’ve always been that type of student that loves to learn, especially in something that I’m passionate about. I knew it was going to be a process because there’s so much to the craft that makes it never-ending. Throughout time, I understood the concept of human nature, and how it applies to character development. Read more>>

Alia Isackson

I’ve learned to do these creative services from years of studying visual arts. I spent most of my childhood always drawing and incorporating art into my life somehow. In first grade, I started the twigs art program at Baltimore school for the Arts until 8th grade. Then I attended Baltimore School for the Arts for four years in the Visual arts concentration. Now I’m a Jewelry and Metalsmithing major at Towson University. I now have a job in florist design using all of my foundational art knowledge. Read more>>

Milena Anfosso, Ph.D.

How I learned my craft… Well, the most obvious answer would be that I’ve been a writer all my life. Written expression has somehow always come naturally to me. But it takes a lot of practice. As early as second grade, I remember keeping a secret journal in which I would write something new every day. Sometimes, it was something articulate and well-thought-out. Sometimes, it was as simple as, “Today I didn’t do anything special, so dear Diary, I’d better go to bed.” Read more>>

Joshua Walk

The very first ingredient is passion! I was never the type to just listen to music. From childhood I have been drawn to music as a way to express my emotions, so my initial draw to music was creating an expression. After 20 years of being an independent artist and paying other people to engineer for me I realized that I was being limited by the engineers capabilities. Read more>>

Annalee Parker

My craft has been learned through a blend of academic exploration, hands-on practice, real-world applications, and an inherent passion for art and design. In learning watercolor, I’ve gone beyond classroom lessons. I’ve hit the outdoors, painting landscapes in plein air sessions and joining paint-out events. These experiences allowed me to capture nature’s changing beauty and learn from fellow artists, getting different perspectives. Read more>>

Nicole Peebles

I would say I’m self taught adjacent. I’ve learned a lot on my own but I also learned a lot from other people, tutorials, books, etc. It’s a continuous process though and I currently have no formal training or have taken any lessons, but I’m hoping to further my education in the future. Read more>>

Garrett Langebartels

As a multi-disciplinary artist, I have a hard time separating one of my creative expressions from another. I make my living making music, but I live making art. Learning the craft looked more like learning to live the life of an artist. For me the craft is more a way of seeing the world, so from early on that meant expressing my creative intuitions with whatever I had available to me. When I was very young, it was off-brand Crayola water color paints and a toy bass guitar my dad made me for my 4th birthday. Read more>>

Chazahyah Bat Yah

When I was 8 years old, my mom bought my first sewing machine. See, I had two moms, my dad had two wives when I was born and though my non-biological mom didn’t give birth to me, she always loved me as her own. She had come to visit me once from the US (I was born and raised in Israel) and she surprised me with my first portable sewing machine. Read more>>

Liz Eitel

I started my ceramics journey in college. I attended Gallaudet University in Washington DC originally majoring in Interpreting. I’ve always been creative and took a ceramics class for fun my sophomore year. That turned into a double major in Studio Art, and Interpreting. Gallaudet is a small University so my ceramics class size was very small, I was able to work 1:1 with my professor and mentor to be able to develop my skills.  Read more>>

Mary Engelken

Interior design has been a lifelong passion of mine, and during the pandemic, I took the plunge to turn it into a career. Friends and family sought my help, prompting me to make a career pivot after my third child in 2021. I went back to school to further develop my skills, emphasizing crucial technology platforms like AutoCAD and SketchUp. Read more>>

Katie Thompson

As a creative, I know I also need to be a lifelong learner. I came into the audiobook industry with a handful of skills that initially helped me get my feet off the ground. I have over 15 years of experience in theater and film, a Master’s degree in journalism and media, and have been podcasting since 2018. I was no stranger to performing and audio production. However, I quickly realized I still needed to learn a wealth of knowledge to be successful as a narrator. Read more>>

Average Dad Gaming

I’ve been playing video games since I got a Nintendo. I grew up loving sports games. Fast forward to 3 years ago when my son told me to start playing Apex Legends. I used to play Apex Legends so much that my wife said I should just start streaming it live. Fast forward to Mothers Day 2022 is when I started my Youtube Journey. Read more>>

Jacqueline Kyuseo Kim

I learned most of photography, printing, and scanning through putting in hours. I would put myself in the space and practice couple hours every day so I don’t loose the muscle to it and I can train my eyes and taste in photography. For photography, I booked myself countless collaborations with a range of designers so there’s a clear deadline and I can learn how to understand how to make vague ideas make sense to me to shoot. This practice helped me to have a workflow in all stages of production with my fashion and fine art work. Read more>>

J. Jordan Bruns

I believe I have a solid understanding of the mechanics of paint. High School provided an excellent foundation with my fantastic teacher, David King, who instilled valuable habits in me as a young painter. My skills continued to improve through the guidance of exceptional artists and teachers during my time at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). Even now, twenty years after graduating, I maintain contact with my favorite teacher, Ephraim Rubenstein, seeking his advice. Read more>>

Krista Joy Kintner

I grew up on all things creative: painting, sketching, writing and always had a desire to create art from the world that was presented before me. I had an eye for design, but never really knew what type of design I wanted to do. After studying interior design in college, I explored the world of floristry by creating wreaths out of foraged & dried elements. I fell in love with the different varieties of the seasons, & what intentional floral art could be. Read more>>

Richy Sánchez Ayala

Progressing in art is harder than it seems from the outside. Many people assume that good artwork is born from talent, and throughout my career as both a student and a professional I quickly learned that this is not the case. Art is a skill, much like being a Doctor or a mechanic, nobody (at least in my experience) is born with the tools to be successful. It takes studying, practice, dedication, and endless amounts of patience. Read more>>

Caleb Saint Julian

Though I work in many mediums (paint, pen, dance, photography, etc) I have been focused on block printing as of late. I was first introduced to the medium in my 8th grade art class. In fact, I still have the stencil I made all those years ago. However the focus on that medium extended no longer than 2 weeks. I then revisited the medium on my own about 5 years ago and have been expanding on and refining my knowledge and skill on my own since then. Read more>>

Jeannette de Beauvoir

Learning to write is obviously a never-ending endeavor. I am a better writer today than I was a week ago, and I anticipate that a week from now I’ll have improved significantly as well. Understanding that “learning the craft” is a work in progress is enormously helpful, because it means you take every event, encounter, thought, and experience as part of your writing practice. You ascribe meaning to everything. Read more>>

Wade Newhouse

A lesson that I’ve learned as a teacher and writer is that people really hate but can also really use constructive criticism if that criticism is given from a place of support and knowledge. Making grammar corrections on a student’s paper, for instance, doesn’t reward the process that a student went through to get to that point–just as an editor asking about tiny details in a story I have submitted is not as useful as a comment or a suggestion that suggests real understanding of what I was trying to do in that story. Read more>>

Rosie Bono

As overused as this saying is, I still find it extremely true. The best way to learn is to do. I learned the intricacies of planning, running (of even just assisting in), and executing successful events is to be hands on and proactive in your involvement from the start. I learned from working the hospitality industry as soon as I could, starting in food and beverage service (bartending, catering, etc.), and got involved in project where my passion was (fan conventions, community events). Read more>>

Tiffany Cade

I knew I always wanted to dive into art since pre-K. Every step of my academic journey I made sure to have an art class of some sort. I truly started to learn my crafts in college. I received my Associate degree in art by the end of highschool and went on to the University of Houston-Downtown and received my bachelors’ degree in art, magna cum laude. I studied studio topics in art, figure drawing, graphic design, painting, graphic novel and much more. Read more>>

Ester Pugliese

When I was eight I was so proud of a realistic labrador retriever I’d drawn. I also watched my mom transform from a hobby artist into an accomplished painter when she graduated from OCAD. Her journey inspired me to major in Visual Arts at an arts high school, which led to a BFA in Painting at York University (2001). Knowing that art was my strength in those formative years shaped the rest of my life/career decisions. Read more>>

Jacqueline Yvonne Tull

A lot of people, women especially, ask me how I got started learning metalworking and woodworking. Throughout most of my art education I focused on two dimensional mediums such as drawing, painting, and printmaking, but when the assignments were taken away from me and I was given the freedom to explore what my art was about, I couldn’t stop working with three-dimensional materials. Read more>>

Dear Quinton

From young, I’ve always had a sound in my head that I knew eventually to some extend I would master. When I started taking music seriously I knew that the music I was making then did not sound like it could be on the radio, and it frustrated me. I knew I needed some sort of professional space – so I created my own. To this day much of my music is still engineered by me. Read more>>

Lizzy Brown

I was creating and selling my jewelry for eight years before learning to craft with metal. I took a few basic metalsmithing classes with The Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach under Master Metalsmith, Lisa Johnson, and then I just began to explore my tools and materials. I eventually felt comfortable with the process and found my way thru my new jewelry-making journey. Read more>>

Jesus Santillanes

Since I remember, I have always liked drawing, but I never really took it too seriously until my early twenties. I grew up reading comics and my first memories of making art was drawing Spider-Man and Ice Man. Of course it never came out the way I wanted, I continued doing it. Once I got older, my interest switched from drawing comic book characters to drawing monsters. Read more>>

Dominique Chaney

I’ve always had an interest in makeup, from the first time I saw my mother get her makeup professionally done at the Lancome counter when I was a teen. I was hooked. I asked lots of questions and learned what I could from the MUA my mom worked with frequently. I took the lessons she gave me and built from there. I would do makeup for my friends and family. I never really saw it as a career aspiration, more so a hobby that I enjoyed. Read more>>

Caleb The Artist

All my life I’ve been surrounded by music, I come from a very musically inclined family that was rooted heavily in church, and growing up it was pretty much an requirement to use your gift to sing. I learned mostly from the elders and what I saw them do and also listening to different genres of music. So my training for 10 years (grade school to high-school) required many nights of piano lessons, Theater rehearsals, Choir rehearsals that gave me tools to be successful in my career today. Read more>>

James Paul LaGraff

For me, my craft starts with passion. When it comes to the hours that I’ve put into learning the guitar, I’m fortunate enough to say I started young enough to have almost completely forgotten what it ever felt like not knowing how to (at least to some extent). My craft is simply a result of the path it has led me on henceforth. It’s the culmination of any and every session or performance I’ve ever done, to the way it’s always just felt when I’m playing it at home. Read more>>

Tilly Bridges

The most difficult thing about becoming a good writer, about becoming a better writer, is learning how to be okay with terrible work. Nothing will ever be perfect and ready to go on the first draft, though as you gain experience your first drafts do get stronger. But you have to push through and let it suck. If you stop to fix what you know needs fixing, you can get caught revising act I over and over again and never getting anywhere. Read more>>

Jon Schanke

Learning the craft has always been a major inspiration in my journey as an artist. To think back on the evolution of my tastes in music is one wild ride. I’ve never felt gravitated towards one single genre of music, and there have been several people in my life I am grateful for introducing me to certain songs, soundtracks, movies, or artists throughout my life. Read more>>

Robert Mason Sandifer

Before I answer these questions, I think I have to answer the question of how I learned to love what I do. From an early age, I took an interest in music and began taking piano lessons when I was four years old. I soon discovered the beauty in music, creating my own little songs that stirred my soul and left me wanting to share this beauty with others. As I got older I learned that people do indeed still compose music for any form of media and so I pursued this path with a passion. Read more>>

Taylor Jean

I’ve been a self-taught photographer for over 6 years now. I learned everything I know mostly via YouTube videos and photography forums but knowing what I know now I would have taken in person photography and photoshop courses instead of teaching myself everything the hard way. The best skill I try to maintain though is confidence and if you’re not passionate about and proud to show your work then it won’t take you anywhere. Read more>>

Leela Owen

I think with acting, the number one best way to learn is to be on set and observe actors who have been at it longer then you. Classes are great, but watching people who have already booked the project and are there in front of the camera is even better. If I’d start at the beginning, I’d focus more on that rather then the “educational” side. A skill I have now developed that is in my opinion essential, is being an observer of people’s action in every day life. Read more>>

Judith Favia

I was working full time as a project manager for a marketing firm, 80 hour workweeks and heavy travel. The advice to destress almost always includes starting a hobby or taking a class. Minneapolis has an excellent center for book arts, so I signed up for a class in the late 1980s. I really enjoyed it and over the next 20 years, I continued to take classes when I could. Read more>>